give me doughnuts:I got my first summer job when I was 13. I had to get a work-permit through the school board.I worked 40 hours a weeks, for four weeks (detassling corn has a short season), at the then current Federal minimum wage of $3.25.

I see nothing wrong with kids under 16 having a summer job, but if they are going to do the same job as someone over 16, then pay them the same wage.

I detasseled too, but there are loads of agricultural job descriptions that let the companies pay you peanuts.

MindStalker:While the governor is stretching a bit to push for 12 year olds to get a job. I do think that making it easier for 15/16 year olds to get work experience even at a bit below minimum wage would benefit those kids in the long run. Right now its near impossible for 16 year olds to get a job as all the college kids have pushed them out of low positions.

I was 13 When I started my paper route. I delivered papers 5 days a week after school. Did not hurt my grades and I had more money that any of my friends.

neversubmit:FarkedOver: This is outright class warfare. The upper class is winning.

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I have to be honest, fark that guy, and fark the administration over increasing coal mining leases (although bravo for finally getting new regs through for coal emissions what will hopefully get us off coal faster).

He's got a stake in the Powder Basin coal export market, and they tried to ram his trains through my city despite objections from our residents and nearly every city along the route to Coos Bay, Oregon.

The only thing that stopped them from going this route (they'd pass about 1/2 mile from my home), was the feds were requiring the investors to upgrade the rail line to handle the increase in traffic, something they said no too.

They want to sell that coal now, immediately, before the market evaporates, to China, India, and South Korea (among others) because the US is moving away from coal. Fark that noise.

Unfortunately, all three are also trying to move away from coal, with all three investing heavily in renewable as well as nuclear power generation.

Huggermugger:What specifically does he hope to accomplish with this? Is there some task that just isn't getting done because there are no tiny hands to do it? Is there some industry that will finally flourish once it can employ children? Will the economy of Maine significantly improve once this legislation is passed?

Well sure. Why hire adults for some jobs when kids can do it for $2 less an hour?

For radical conservatives regulation is always bad. Child labor laws are generally recognized as good regulation but radical conservatives can't accept that so they have to find a way to argue against them. It's a simple mix of contrarianism and blind devotion to ideology.

A Libertarian friend of mine likes environmental regulations (he fishes a lot, and says he's seen how things have improved in the rivers he fishes in) but admits he can't square that with his ideology.

For radical conservatives regulation is always bad. Child labor laws are generally recognized as good regulation but radical conservatives can't accept that so they have to find a way to argue against them. It's a simple mix of contrarianism and blind devotion to ideology.

A Libertarian friend of mine likes environmental regulations (he fishes a lot, and says he's seen how things have improved in the rivers he fishes in) but admits he can't square that with his ideology.

Sure he can. There's nothing necessarily inherent about libertarianism that says a government cannot intervene in cases where an individual's actions cause harm to others and force them to internalize those costs. Pollution is one clear example of this. Now if you're an anarchist, then you'll have trouble justifying those laws.

Benevolent Misanthrope:Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R), who championed a measure in March 2011 that would not only allow kids as young as 12 to get jobs, but would also allow employers to pay children less than the minimum wage.

OK, US - you do know that the rest of the world is noticing that, while you're the richest nation on earth, you're also working hard to be the most socially backward, right? And you're working hard to create a State where the haves are filthy rich while the have-nots are slaves, with no real middle class. Right? You do see that. Right?

Yes.

Any chance I could marry you to get a green card to Canada?

/Bonus: I qualify for perm residency on my own anyway. I got my BA in Canada. I'm half Canadian already!//would seriously consider it if she wasn't with a fiance who really does treat her like a queen

pdee:MindStalker: While the governor is stretching a bit to push for 12 year olds to get a job. I do think that making it easier for 15/16 year olds to get work experience even at a bit below minimum wage would benefit those kids in the long run. Right now its near impossible for 16 year olds to get a job as all the college kids have pushed them out of low positions.

I was 13 When I started my paper route. I delivered papers 5 days a week after school. Did not hurt my grades and I had more money that any of my friends.

Not seeing the problem. No one is being forced to work.

People are being forced to work, and if the parents can't make enough to support the family then they'll take the kids out of school and put them to work. Especially if the Teapartiers can get minimum wage laws eliminated, along with food stamps and any other government-funded safety net.

For radical conservatives regulation is always bad. Child labor laws are generally recognized as good regulation but radical conservatives can't accept that so they have to find a way to argue against them. It's a simple mix of contrarianism and blind devotion to ideology.

A Libertarian friend of mine likes environmental regulations (he fishes a lot, and says he's seen how things have improved in the rivers he fishes in) but admits he can't square that with his ideology.

Sure he can. There's nothing necessarily inherent about libertarianism that says a government cannot intervene in cases where an individual's actions cause harm to others and force them to internalize those costs. Pollution is one clear example of this.

Wouldn't they argue we should all wait for the market to sort it out? You know, because people speak with their dollars and they would never support a heavy polluter. They'll go out of business any day now. Any day.

For radical conservatives regulation is always bad. Child labor laws are generally recognized as good regulation but radical conservatives can't accept that so they have to find a way to argue against them. It's a simple mix of contrarianism and blind devotion to ideology.

A Libertarian friend of mine likes environmental regulations (he fishes a lot, and says he's seen how things have improved in the rivers he fishes in) but admits he can't square that with his ideology.

I thought Libertarians were a "your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose" kind of people?

In this case, the fist was pollution produced by factories and farms, and his nose was the rivers he liked to fish, and also his body, since he probably had to and still has to limit how much fish he eats.

This really is Obama's fault. For more than 200 years this country has been a bastion of white male privilege, with the president as white male-in-chief. Obama has thrown this traditional social structure into chaos and the repubs are lashing out against every threatening demographic in an almost homosexual panic of anxiety and despair. And rightly, too; whites are about to lose their majority status and the election of a black man and, inevitably, a woman to the presidency will become more and more common in the years ahead. The attitude is "Goddammit, respect us, whether or not we've done anything to deserve your respect. Or we'll farking kill you." A similar motivation underlies the Arab attitude. They've done nothing of value or importance for the past three hundred years but you goddam well better respect them or they'll blow shiat up. Both groups need a good kick upside the head.

Newsflash: Your snowflakes aren't that precious. They will not die or suffer permanent injury if asked to do some chores at age 15. Or if they get paid for it.

Everyone here agrees with that. But heaven forbid the law comport with reality.

Work your child 70 hours a week with academics and piano lessons? Win Tiger Mom of the Year. Let him earn a few bucks doing 5 hours a week as a stockboy during the summer? Punch your ticket to the seventh level of Hell, you child abuser.

GoldSpider:meat0918: They want to sell that coal now, immediately, before the market evaporates, to China, India, and South Korea (among others) because the US is moving away from coal. Fark that noise.

And to think they had the gall to propose installing offshore wind turbines within view from my beach house!

I have a fundamental disagreement with selling our country's energy reserves and other unprocessed natural resources to a nation like China, one that doesn't really have our best interests in mind, and one that turns around and sells us a product utilizing those materials, made with cheap labor and abundant human rights abuses.

It happens with a lot of things, timber, oil, natural gas, minerals, even chicken now, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

Like All Republicans, Gov. LePage actively wants to return to the early 1800s, with all minorities in chains, women treated as chattel, and children only worth what they can earn in the mines and factories. Every single Republican in America wants this 100%. The ones who say they don't are pants-shiatting cowards afraid to admit the truth in public. This does not distinguish them from the rest of the Republicans.

Gov. LePage is quite brave for a Republican (which puts him in the bottom .0001% of people on the planet) for speaking his mind as he did, giving voice to what All Republicans really believe.

Garet Garrett:Newsflash: Your snowflakes aren't that precious. They will not die or suffer permanent injury if asked to do some chores at age 15. Or if they get paid for it.

Everyone here agrees with that. But heaven forbid the law comport with reality.

Work your child 70 hours a week with academics and piano lessons? Win Tiger Mom of the Year. Let him earn a few bucks doing 5 hours a week as a stockboy during the summer? Punch your ticket to the seventh level of Hell, you child abuser.

"Do some chores"? LePage isn't talking about taking out the garbage here.

For radical conservatives regulation is always bad. Child labor laws are generally recognized as good regulation but radical conservatives can't accept that so they have to find a way to argue against them. It's a simple mix of contrarianism and blind devotion to ideology.

A Libertarian friend of mine likes environmental regulations (he fishes a lot, and says he's seen how things have improved in the rivers he fishes in) but admits he can't square that with his ideology.

I thought Libertarians were a "your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose" kind of people?

In this case, the fist was pollution produced by factories and farms, and his nose was the rivers he liked to fish, and also his body, since he probably had to and still has to limit how much fish he eats.

"All persons, businesses, corporate entities, and municipalities which take water from a navigable waterway, and release an effluent which flows back into said navigable waterway, must place the outflow upstream of the intake."

That way, they clean up on their own, or else they suck up their own pollution.

I'm sorry you're anti-labor. But child labor, the 8 hour work day, safety on the job.... all things that were fought hard for by leftist activists. Now people regularly work more than 8 hours a day, they want kids back at the work place, and OSHA is just gubmint red tape getting in the way of progress.

Lets do the cameroncrazy1984 method to solve problems: click your heels three times and vote!

For radical conservatives regulation is always bad. Child labor laws are generally recognized as good regulation but radical conservatives can't accept that so they have to find a way to argue against them. It's a simple mix of contrarianism and blind devotion to ideology.

A Libertarian friend of mine likes environmental regulations (he fishes a lot, and says he's seen how things have improved in the rivers he fishes in) but admits he can't square that with his ideology.

I thought Libertarians were a "your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose" kind of people?

In this case, the fist was pollution produced by factories and farms, and his nose was the rivers he liked to fish, and also his body, since he probably had to and still has to limit how much fish he eats.

"All persons, businesses, corporate entities, and municipalities which take water from a navigable waterway, and release an effluent which flows back into said navigable waterway, must place the outflow upstream of the intake."

That way, they clean up on their own, or else they suck up their own pollution.

/just my $0.02

I'm just hazarding a guess, but that'd be one of the regulations his friend can't square up with his ideology.

HotWingConspiracy:I don't know about Maine, but here you can work at 14. And you have to get paid a legal wage.

For now, it's the same. You have to get a work permit if you're under 16, as referenced in the article, but these are pretty much given to anyone who asks who isn't a truant. And I believe under those under 16 can be paid less than minimum wage for the first 6 mos.

Famous Thamas:give me doughnuts: I got my first summer job when I was 13. I had to get a work-permit through the school board.I worked 40 hours a weeks, for four weeks (detassling corn has a short season), at the then current Federal minimum wage of $3.25.

I see nothing wrong with kids under 16 having a summer job, but if they are going to do the same job as someone over 16, then pay them the same wage.

I detasseled too, but there are loads of agricultural job descriptions that let the companies pay you peanuts.

One would almost assume the agri-business has an under$tanding with local political machine.

Once we moved back to the 'burbs when I was 14, those jobs were impossible to get. You practically had to knife your competition to get a decent number of lawn-mowing customers, but once you got them lined up, the money was better than you got for flipping burgers once you turned 16.

Peki:Benevolent Misanthrope: Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R), who championed a measure in March 2011 that would not only allow kids as young as 12 to get jobs, but would also allow employers to pay children less than the minimum wage.

OK, US - you do know that the rest of the world is noticing that, while you're the richest nation on earth, you're also working hard to be the most socially backward, right? And you're working hard to create a State where the haves are filthy rich while the have-nots are slaves, with no real middle class. Right? You do see that. Right?

Yes.

Any chance I could marry you to get a green card to Canada?

/Bonus: I qualify for perm residency on my own anyway. I got my BA in Canada. I'm half Canadian already!//would seriously consider it if she wasn't with a fiance who really does treat her like a queen

I don't even have my green card yet. I am a guest of the State. And they still treat me better than my home country.

cameroncrazy1984:FarkedOver: I'm sorry you're anti-labor. But child labor, the 8 hour work day, safety on the job.... all things that were fought hard for by leftist activist

Sure they were, but how did they become law?

Apparently I'm anti-labor for supporting things that actually help labor, rather than a feel-good movement.

Haymarket Affair and Minneapolis in the 1930s - All feel good movements. A truncheon to the farking skull sure does feel good, a few bullets from the police and national guard mmmmm feels good. I'm talking about a militant labor movement that is what we need again. We don't need better candidates, we don't need better laws, we need the brute force of the working class to throw it's weight around once again. You're talking about voting for democrats that are maybe, at best, marginally better than their republican counterparts. I'm talking about constructive, militant change for workers.

That was back in the day when the US actually made things instead of being a "service economy" after exporting middle-class jobs to poorer countries. Now these entry-level jobs are the *only* jobs in many regions of the country.

GoldSpider:cameroncrazy1984: "Do some chores"? LePage isn't talking about taking out the garbage here.

He's also not talking about forcing kids to work 70-hour work-weeks.

Not sure if this is part of the current proposal, but in the last round he wanted to lift the 20-hour limit and 10:00 p.m. weeknight curfew on kids between 16-18. So in LePage's case, that's much less hyperbole than it is worst case scenario.

For radical conservatives regulation is always bad. Child labor laws are generally recognized as good regulation but radical conservatives can't accept that so they have to find a way to argue against them. It's a simple mix of contrarianism and blind devotion to ideology.

A Libertarian friend of mine likes environmental regulations (he fishes a lot, and says he's seen how things have improved in the rivers he fishes in) but admits he can't square that with his ideology.

I thought Libertarians were a "your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose" kind of people?

In this case, the fist was pollution produced by factories and farms, and his nose was the rivers he liked to fish, and also his body, since he probably had to and still has to limit how much fish he eats.

"All persons, businesses, corporate entities, and municipalities which take water from a navigable waterway, and release an effluent which flows back into said navigable waterway, must place the outflow upstream of the intake."

That way, they clean up on their own, or else they suck up their own pollution.

/just my $0.02

I'm just hazarding a guess, but that'd be one of the regulations his friend can't square up with his ideology.

It's a fictional regulation.

It would be nice to put in place, but there are plenty of people and organizations that would fight it.Theoretically, the President could do it under his authority as Commander-in-Chief (Navy, Coast Guard, Army Corps of Engineers). Not sure, but I think he would have authority over "navigable" waterways.

Garet Garrett:Newsflash: Your snowflakes aren't that precious. They will not die or suffer permanent injury if asked to do some chores at age 15. Or if they get paid for it.

Everyone here agrees with that. But heaven forbid the law comport with reality.

Work your child 70 hours a week with academics and piano lessons? Win Tiger Mom of the Year. Let him earn a few bucks doing 5 hours a week as a stockboy during the summer? Punch your ticket to the seventh level of Hell, you child abuser.

MindStalker:While the governor is stretching a bit to push for 12 year olds to get a job. I do think that making it easier for 15/16 year olds to get work experience even at a bit below minimum wage would benefit those kids in the long run. Right now its near impossible for 16 year olds to get a job as all the college kids have pushed them out of low positions.

Yeah, not like the reason those college kids have those jobs is high unemployment or anything. Kicking the college kids out of those jobs will just produce freedom tears from the Mighty Crying Bald Eagle.

Foxxinnia:What kind of jobs would these 12 year olds be having exactly? Like, would they be selling me auto parts or something? I wouldn't buy auto parts from a twelve year old, I know that much.

Make-work or menial jobs. Early in my lifetime, it was not uncommon for a kid to sweep out the local store, wash windows, bus tables, bag groceries and take them to the car, help make deliveries, babysit, etc. You could get paid fifty cents or five dollars (which was a lot of money) depending on how long it took. Often, the employer didn't really need the job done that badly, but saw it as a way to help the community and maybe get a loyal employee down the road. It was an excellent way for kids to learn thrift, stay out of trouble, and develop a work ethic. Many times, it was just seasonally helping out in the family restaurant or farm for no pay..I sold Christmas trees in my grandmother's nursery until I was 12. Then the government decided to put an end to it under the guise of "child labor" laws. I personally think it was unions who simply wanted some of these make-work jobs to pay off relatives of politicians...or whatever silly reason.